World Series Final Game Attracts 51 Million Audience Members In the US, Canada and Japan Markets.
The thrilling 11-inning matchup where the Dodgers defeat the Blue Jays by one run drew a total over 50 million spectators across the United States, Canada, and Japan territories. Major League Baseball reported this represents the highest-rated World Series Game 7 since the 1991 showdown featuring the Twins and Braves.
Television Ratings Breakdown
The Saturday memorable contest averaged 27.33M viewers on Fox Sports networks, its Spanish-language channel and their streaming platforms. Per Nielsen, it was the second most-watched program of the week.
It also is the top-rated World Series matchup after the 2017 edition Game 7 involving the Los Angeles Dodgers and Houston Astros, which averaged over 29 million. This marks a sixteen percent improvement over the previous Game 7 between the Washington Nationals and Astros, which attracted 23.19 million.
In the weekly rankings, Game 6 ranked 4th, the fourth game ranked seventh, Game 5 came in 8th, and Game 3 landed in thirteenth place.
International Audience Numbers
In the Canadian market, the climactic game averaged over 11 million viewers on Sportsnet and the French-language TVA Sports channel. This made it the highest-rated English-language program in Canada since the 2010 edition Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the final contest started at 9 PM local time, it attracted 12M. This followed the previous Friday’s sixth game – where Fall Classic MVP Yoshinobu Yamamoto gave up a single run in six innings – averaged 13.1 million viewers, making it the highest-rated Fall Classic matchup on a single network in Japan.
Series Averages and Patterns
The entire seven-match World Series recorded over 15.7 million audience members on the Fox network, a 2% rise from the previous year’s Dodgers-Yankees series. This represents the first time since 2015 and ‘16 that the World Series has seen viewership growth for two consecutive seasons.
Counting the opening game telecast on the Univision network, the total American viewership was over 16 million. The total World Series viewership in Japan was 9.7M and 8.1 million in the Canadian market.
The complete MLB Postseason on Fox, FS1 and FS2 averaged 8.09M viewers, an 8% rise compared to last year and Fox’s strongest playoff performance after the 2017 season.
Major League Baseball announced that the World Series was televised in 203 nations and regions by 44 media partners in 16 different languages.
